Thus Mrs. Savage wandered in her thoughts as she closed her son’s note. She had received a hard blow, but women like her do not spend much time in recrimination when work is to be done. “I will go at once,” she thought. “This may be nothing serious, after all; Horace is so generous, and he knew of their poverty. This may only be one of his private charities, which the old maid has tortured into a love romance.” Mrs. Savage followed out these thoughts by ringing for her maid, and ordering her shawl and bonnet to be brought down; but the girl had hardly left the room when a servant came from the hall, and inquired if Mrs. Savage could spare a minute to the young person who came so often about the fine sewing? “Let her come up—let her come up,” answered the lady, in eager haste. “Mary, you need not get the things; I shall not go out just now.” Anna Burns came into the room softly as a tear falls. She was pale, and a sad sweetness made her face touchingly lovely. “I have brought the work home,” she said, laying a roll of embroidered muslin on the table, and leaning against the marble for support. “And—and I have come to say that grandmother does not think it best that I should take any more.” Anna’s voice shook, and the woman who listened knew that it trembled through suppressed tears. “Why do you give up work?” she inquired, with unconscious sympathy in her voice. “I—I——Because grandmother thinks it best. Carrying home the work takes me a good deal into the street, and she does not think that good for me.” “Your grandmother is a prudent woman. But how are you to live without work?” “I don’t know. Perhaps I can find something to do that wont take me away from home just at present, at least.” Mrs. Savage took up the roll of work and began to examine it. Woman of the world as she was, something gentle and good about that girl prevented her speaking out as she had proposed do. The sad, wistful look turned upon her bespoke too much sorrow for ungentle handling. “Sit down,” she said, gently, as if she had been addressing a naughty child, “I wish to speak with you.” Anna sat down with a frightened look, and trembling a little as the lady could see. “You know my son, Anna Burns?” “Yes; yes, madam, a little—that is, I did.” “He has been to your house?” “To our rooms you mean, lady? Yes, he has been there.” “More than once?” “Oh, yes! more than once. We—we did not think there was any harm in it.” Anna’s eyes were filling with tears; her lips quivered like those of a grieved child just before it bursts into a cry. “Did he help you——” “Madam!” “Did he give you money? Was it for that he came?” “Money? Oh! he would not do that. Grandmother is a lady; and no one ever offers her money, most of all, Mr. Savage.”